#MeTooChild

Louise Godbold 2/1/1812:21 PM

Thanks to #MeToo there is now less stigma and a great deal of empowerment surrounding those who choose to come out about sexual harassment and assault. As there was a veritable tsunami of people posting the hashtag, victims were released from becoming the focus of attention or being pressed by friends and family for details that the victim is not yet ready to give, or can find retraumatizing. It was enough to post those simple words and stand, freed from shame and blame, in solidarity with all those who had finally found their voice.

Not so for childhood sexual abuse. I find that I can talk about my encounter with Harvey Weinstein but when I mention childhood sexual abuse (CSA), I look around to see who is listening and lower my voice. I still haven't told my mother about my own history. Why does CSA carry more shame and stigma? It doesn’t make sense. Sadly, as we have seen from Weinstein’s attempts to shift blame, there is always the question of consent that can be used to muddy the waters in cases of adult sexual assault, but not so for children. The median age for reported CSA is nine years old – well below the age of consent.

I think the reason why survivors carry this extra burden of shame is that we get caught up in the revulsion that surrounds CSA. People don't want to talk about it or turn from it, which means they also turn from us. And yet we know 1 out of 3 girls and 1 out of 5 boys (and that's just those who report) have experienced CSA. It festers in the silence and gets passed down generations, eating the heart out of families and destroying lives. It also sets us up to become trauma victims in later life - I simply dissociated with Harvey because that's how I had protected myself as a child.

I want to start a campaign similar to #MeToo - #MeTooChild - that will allow the victims of CSA, and any Adverse Childhood Experiences, the freedom and dignity to stand up and throw off the silence that - let's be clear here - only protects the perpetrators, and shout from the rooftops, “Me too! I am that child.” I believe this would stop the generational trauma that we see in our work at Echo. I believe that this would be a significant step in my own healing and provide healing and empowerment for millions.

Will you join me?

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Louise GodboldMember

Children love to learn as much as Golden Retriever's love to chase balls - once you get this there can only be abject horror at our current situation in classrooms across the US at the surreal horrific sight of Golden Retrievers hiding from and avoiding balls, with balls being used to abuse, tease, torture, and disrespect the poor trapped, captive animals. Just kidding, we'd never allow that be done a Golden Retriever, ever! Golden Retrievers can breathe a sigh of relief they aren' t children - makes one feel terrible for our poor kids!

SEL, PBIS, Resilience, Mindfulness, Trauma-awareness, all of these commoditize themselves to be saleable into our dysmorphic education system by completely avoiding the core issue that our ed-system is punitive-based. All of these efforts put the blame instead on our child victims themselves: it is they that must learn to self-monitor and suck-up our pathological mistreatment of them so as to better be able to deal with our own inexcusable behaviors. No more.

I had to set aside time, Micheal, so I could properly read this. You make excellent points. With your permission, I will use the Golden Retriever analogy with our trauma-informed schools staff. In fact, I will use all of the quotes above. Thank you!

2/8/187:40 AM

Michael SirbolaMember

I am looking to collaborate. Spread the word, if you would please with YOUR INNER CHILDREN - and your grown and mature-enough children also, importantly also to know of what #MeTooChild is all about - a nations shame and positive urge to action.

Hope is here - Resilience as Neurogenesis - Toxic-Stress Neurodegeneration is overcome by Neurogenesis - A mass-cultural shift in our mindset can cause MASS-NeuroGenesis, intellectual awareness of which enables to better-grasp that Culture is Biology just as Biology is Culture!

Here are some suggested paths from neurodegeneration to neurogenesis,from a mindset of scarcity and competition driving self-interest to one of abundance and cooperation driving group-interest, a flip in cultural-consciousness that our species must make soon or be subject to what is known as the "tragedy of the commons" where a shared forage is over-used beyond need, as by the storing of fat calories against future famine, which then occurs and all die...

Hope is Here in our getting from here to there, in the Primary form of but one change, to education, of all things, first and foremost, far above all in importance to ending 1 in 3 abused as children in America and the need of #MeTooChild is this one single education-culture change:

Zero-Punishment, Consequence-Free, Disciplinary-Free, Golden-Rule schools is where I'm going. We're all headed the same general direction. Wanna come along?

PBI/PBL - Problem and project-based instruction implicitly challenge the isolationist and punitive core education-culture in the U.S. with a collaborative positive reward model where:

*** Errors are OPPORTUNITIES to Learn and Teach, NOT Punish, Judge, Discipline, apply a Consequence or require Restitution -***

- A raised hand, voice, or blatantly Orwellian passive-aggressive English-language-murdering "consequence" - each immediately distracts from the real harm already done by the "bad" or erroneous act done by the child. Focus on this, with the compassion and empathy that are all children's due. Children love to learn as much as Golden Retriever's love to chase balls - once you get this there can only be abject horror at our current situation in classrooms across the US at the surreal horrific sight of Golden Retrievers hiding from and avoiding balls, with balls being used to abuse, tease, torture, and disrespect the poor trapped, captive animals. Just kidding, we'd never allow that be done a Golden Retriever, ever! Golden Retrievers can breathe a sigh of relief they aren' t children - makes one feel terrible for our poor kids!

That such a pathologically punitive and isolationist TRAINING system passes and is even called "education" when it is clearly nothing of the sort, is made possible because ours is also a culture in which 1 in 3 children and adults have high ACE scores, have been abused or emotionally neglected - and is a culture in which MOST persons STILL corporally punish their kids and advise them to stand up and fight back if bullied. Teaching instruction patterned on Norway or Sweden won't and cannot work here because it is MALADAPTIVE to the national culture. It won't and can't work here. The US incarcerates more of its citizens, including children, incredibly, than both China and Russia COMBINED - and have an admitted military expenditure that is equal to that of 70 countries... The Entire World and some experts claim it to be the tip of an iceburg perhaps 3X larger but hidden legally mostly and visibly to various degree's' we spend less per person on international humanitarian aid than any top indistrialized country and more dollars on our military that we publicly admit to alone equal to 70 countries of; Russia, China, France, Britain, Australia, Canada... You get the idea. We have more guns per person than any other nation and also the highest number of murders and accidental deaths plus suicides and a declining lifespan for kids born now versus prior in the U.S. even as we alone allow insurors other than public insurance to even be legal let alone the basis of health care as it is in the U.S. that pays the most to benefit the fewest in health and all spheres, leading in suicides and addictions and with a native population failing to procrate above replacement-level had avoided Japan's economic fate by absorbing decent numbers of immigrants that do still have babies, especially if coming from so-called less developed nations which all begs the question; What on Earth have we done to ourselves here in the U.S.? Our children will not liive as long as us, this is a first-ever for any advancing modern capitalistic democracy. So... Now... Clearly...

We must change, all of us - change enough to see that Golden Retrievers running in fear from bouncy yellow tennis balls and kids not loving school is fundamentally WRONG and that the problem isn't damaged children, its damaged adults damaging children to grow up and be damaged and ball-fearing too. Sigh.

Enough. It is time to put down the paddle and the silly bookshelf of books by Ph.D.'s explaining how all consequences are not negative - as if any child ever looked forward to opening a positive consequence on Christmas day! We, adults, are ill and it is us that needs a behavioral intervention, not our children. It is we adults that deployed PBIS in all 50 States even as Zero Tolerance became the norm along with consequence-matrices, rampant suspensions, and handcuffed-in-class arrests - PBIS was there to help make it all happen and still is.

Sometimes concepts like "cognitive dissonance" are hard to convey: here is my favorite instructive example, the words that the letters PBIS stand for say it all: Positive Behavioral Intervention and Support. Ha-ha! SEL and Trauma-informed Instructional (Sanctuary) methods focus on the necessity that the child must change to better deal with our pathologies from when 1 in 3 of us educators was abused as children.

SEL, PBIS, Resilience, Mindfulness, Trauma-awareness, all of these commoditize themselves to be saleable into our dysmorphic education system by completely avoiding the core issue that our ed-system is punitive-based. All of these efforts put the blame instead on our child victims themselves: it is they that must learn to self-monitor and suck-up our pathological mistreatment of them so as to better be able to deal with our own inexcusable behaviors. No more.

You that read this know better now. Help others to see the truth. Children are dying - this is no longer just about best education practices or national intellectual security and competitiveness. You are morally called-upon. All of us are - to redirect our efforts to ourselves - and to change. We can. We must. Think. Look. Act. For our children's sake and for the future of all mankind. This is the fulcrum upon which we thrive or die. Think. Look. Act. Start this very second. For the lives of children in the US, and worldwide. Them. You. Just you. Now. Ok?

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2/7/189:03 AM

Louise GodboldMember

Beautifully said, John!

Thank you for that analogy. Also, you reminded me that vulnerability is a trigger for people who have experienced trauma, so coming out is going to be very activating and possibly retraumatizing. We need this movement to help people feel empowered, not vulnerable. Go John! Go @#MeTooChild!

2/7/188:04 AM

John TrayserMember

From all that I have read over the years here on ACE Connection...one thing is very clear...without confronting ACEs...there is little chance of Resilience. The courage to "out yourself" has to be the first step. That #MeTooChild opens the door a bit wider can HELP many more people step out from behind the wall of shame and vulnerability that has crippled so many hearts. ANYTHING that allows a broken heart move toward healing is a very valuable thing.

I watched a relatively cheesy movie recently that dealt with the sadness of trauma in a young girls life. As part of their treatment, the children were required to carry a large rock for a full day. They were asked how that felt at the end of the day. They all complained of the burden of how hard it was to do their daily tasks with the addition of the stone in their lives. Now imagine carrying that burden with you every day for the rest of their lives...it's an analogy that I will use in my presentations. My sweet ex-wife is still carrying that stone...and hasn't had a date in 23 years. I love her very much still and always wished she could drop that stone...but it has to be of her choosing.

I share this simple analogy in case you are looking for a way to gently encourage others that might be burdened by the weight of their trauma. I'm all in with you Louise...and hope that we might begin a wave of love and support for those who are looking to lighten the burden they've been carrying. The sadness is just knowing how many people carry that weight...#MeTooChild

2/7/187:25 AM

Louise GodboldMember

Margery Arnold posted:
I'm in.

Thank you, change-maker! thumb

2/2/1810:41 AM

Margery ArnoldMember

I'm in.

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2/2/1810:35 AM

Louise GodboldMember

Cortney Edmondson posted:
@John Trayser posted about this very thing in here a few days ago!

Indeed, Cortney. I called him the moment I saw his community request. We spoke at length about the campaign I wanted to start; we shared our stories and our tears. Like all movements in history, it takes a whole community, a whole society to catch fire in order to make change. Will you join us?

2/2/187:53 AM

Cortney EdmondsonMember

@John Trayser posted about this very thing in here a few days ago!

2/2/186:30 AM

Gail KennedyMember

I'm in Louise! Count me TOO!

2/1/183:37 PM

Louise GodboldMember

Christine Cissy White posted:
Louise:
I'll join you.
I shared the quote below, the hashtag and your name as well as the link to this blog post on social media on pages with lots of other survivors of ACEs, PTS, and CSA.
"I find that I can talk about my encounter with Harvey Weinstein but when I mention childhood sexual abuse (CSA), I look around to see who is listening and lower my voice. I still haven't told my mother about my own history. Why does CSA carry more shame and stigma? It doesn’t make sense. " Louise Godbold
#MeTooChild

Fantastic, Cissy! Thank you so much. Can you also encourage people with Twitter accounts to repost? I think that's the first step in gaining traction for hashtags.

2/1/183:34 PM

Christine Cissy WhiteIt's not trauma-informed unless it's informed by trauma survivors.

Louise:

I'll join you.

I shared the quote below, the hashtag and your name as well as the link to this blog post on social media on pages with lots of other survivors of ACEs, PTS, and CSA.

"I find that I can talk about my encounter with Harvey Weinstein but when I mention childhood sexual abuse (CSA), I look around to see who is listening and lower my voice. I still haven't told my mother about my own history. Why does CSA carry more shame and stigma? It doesn’t make sense. " Louise Godbold

#MeTooChild

2/1/182:36 PM

Former Member

I care about this issue too and that’s why this Human Trafficking Victim’s testimony is so powerful. It’s all backed up by FOIA and other evidence too. This man came out after his friend committed suicide due to his child sexual abuse by Jerry Sandusky of Second Mile charity and Penn State. Also the Franklin Scandal (Boys Town) and an Open Secret would have to be honestly dealt with.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Id-C7Lu-G7M

2/1/181:51 PM

Former Member

This is so poignant. I read it like all of our inner children getting a turn. A lot of #metoo posts I saw stated their ages when things happened and so many were childhood ages. This gives a unique voice to the unique pain of CSA. I love it #metoochild ❤️

2/1/181:28 PM

Louise GodboldMember

Tears and courage - I think we'll see lots of those! God bless you, Robert!

2/1/1812:36 PM

Robert OlcottMember

Yes, I will join you, Louise Godbold. I may need a moment to let the tears stop flowing. Thank You for proposing this TOO!

In 2000, at a "Grand Rounds" continuing medical education presentation at [then Dartmouth, now] Geisel Medical School, an Epidemiologist noted: "52% of Detroit Metropolitan Area SCHOOLCHILDREN met the DSM-IV criteria for PTSD". Similar numbers have been reported more recently in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Atlanta. ...

2/1/1812:30 PM

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